Rep. Grayson's Message to Sen. Begich

"If I have to choose between my job and saving lives, I know how to make that choice."

Don't Cry for Me, Ardent Hyena

Glenn Beck, in a recent photo shoot for GQ Magazine, after having a lot of Vick's Vapo-Rub applied below his eyes:


With that image in your mind, watch this Young Turks clip from February:

Saturday Alaska Progressive Blog Roundup - October 3, 2009

It was about a year ago that our small group of Alaska progressive bloggers began to realize that we were performing an important role in getting the word out on how awful a potential Vice President of the USA was our then-governor, the Crazy Woman. As one reporter, journalist, documentary maker, videographer or writer after another told us, "We can't get ANY help from the Alaska media," we would reply, "How may we help?"


A year ago, the Anchorage Daily News still occupied both floors of a large building off of Bragaw in the Airport Heights neighborhood of Anchorage. Since then, they've vacated the once-bustling top floor of the building, moving the remaining staff into smaller and smaller domains of what I once predicted would become the Ted Stevens Warehouse of Moldy Stenography.

A year ago, as the Alaska progressive bloggers were hosting, rooming, dining and providing contacts to Outside reporters, the ADN was setting up their Shrine to Sarah Palin. While we were busting our balls to help these curious journalists, the ADN was failing to return these same correspondents' calls. Here are members of the Wasilla Project, a year ago, working on their editing notes in my kitchen:
In the time since, the ADN has covered many stories. They've even attempted to cover the growing importance of the Alaska progressive bloggers, and other bloggers. With diminished staff and resources, Anchorage and Alaska traditional media is hard pressed to cover our rural areas, maritime issues, fisheries issues, science, and even the Alaska legislative session in Juneau. While the MSM here is shrinking, the presence of some of the most articulate Alaska bloggers is growing:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Yesterday evening, as AK Muckraker, Gryph and I - three Alaska bloggers - were sitting and watching Mr. Whitekeys come up with several overhead projector photo images taken from our blogs and from other blogs like Kodiak Konfidential (the fake Vogue cover), did we care that he was using material we had either created or published? No. We were pumped. We laughed our asses off.

Our small community has grown a lot this past year. More on how much we have contributed soon.

Another Busy Friday

University of Alaska Anchorage Art Department Chairman Mariano Gonzales' installation at the art gallery in Alaska Pacific University's Grant Hall opened Friday evening. The installation asks people to write their feelings about our continuing wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan on papers placed upon a long wall. By the time the opening was over at 6:30 p.m, his papers were almost 25% full.

As part of the opening, I performed a new version of Shards, for bugle and electronic sound.

Here is how the space looked from behind my music stand:
Here is National Guard veteran Macon Roberts, writing his long comment:
Here is the comment by APU President, Doug North (please note the facile misspelling of the word guerrilla by the president of a university):

After packing up my sound gear at APU, I drove out to the Palmer fairgrounds, for the Friends of Mat-Su fundraiser with Mr. Whitekeys. He had a lot of great new material.

Here's a shot during the Crazy Woman sequence:
Author Joe McGinniss and Mr. Whitekeys:
Here's AK Muckraker, Brian the Moose and Whitekeys, after the show:

Has Mr. Whitekeys Hired Todd Palin?

Has he cynically calculated that becoming Governor of Alaska is a short cut to the Vice Presidency?

Has he tried on the Naughty Monkey shoes that come with the job yet?

Come to Raven Hall at the Palmer fairgrounds tonight (silent auction for Friends of Mat-Su at 7:00 - Whitekeys at 8:00) and find out.

Ticket price reduced at the door!

Right-Wing Nutcases Go Wild - Obama Defeated in Copenhagen

Why do these guys go so nuts about this?

Beck's claim that no other leader has ever gone to an IOC site selection process meeting and been defeated is absurd. The prime minister of Japan and president of Brazil are both there, pushing for sites in their countries.

Personally, I hope Rio de Janiero gets it.

Please remind us... why are Americans still dying in the Middle East?

Anchorage conceptual artist, Mariano Gonzales will open a stark, straightforward exhibit at Alaska Pacific University's Grant Hall Art Gallery Friday. Here's how Mariano explained it to me Wednesday:

this show is about getting feedback from regular folks about our involvement in the Middle East. What do normal people feel about this?

There will be several pages of very large, lined, yellowish blank pages, on the wall. Writing instruments will be there for people to express their views.

There will be several American flags. Some will be displayed provocatively.

All will be displayed with respect.

I'll be performing the premiere of Shards IV, for bugle and electronics, at around 6:15 p.m. It will be the first performance of Shards dedicated to our most recent dead in Afghanistan. All previous performances have honored our most recent Iraq War fallen. The Shards series was begun to both honor our fatal war casualties, and protest the growing mechanization and dehumanization of our expanding policy of total war all the time.

It is especially sad to have to continue the series under the administration of a president for whom I voted and donated.

Mariano Gonzales
October 2 -25, 2009 Art Gallery
Grant Hall - APU Campus

1st Friday opening reception:
October 2, 2009 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.

Sen. Begich's Two Senate Floor Speeches Today

On Benefits for the Alaska Territorial National Guard:


On The Need to Reduce or Contain Costs in Health Care:

Sen. Rockefeller Teams Up with Sen. Franken

Sen. Rockefeller yesterday on Countdown:


Sen. Franken last week on health care reform:


Compare his stances to those of Sen. Begich:

More on Palin's Co-Author, White Supremacist Creationist & Opponent of Interracial Marriage, Lynn Vincent

Lynn Vincent, Palin's co-author of the upcoming fictional Palin life story, Going Rogue, has an interesting past as co-author. She appears to have been quite comfortable co-authoring with white supremacist Robert Stacy McCain.

Their most notable book together, Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party, can be picked up at Amazon.com for 49 cents. The book is so in-you-face false that it is hard to find a serious review. Here an Amazon.com reader/reviewer tries:

First Prize Winner for the most lies in the fewest pages!

They use Southern "Democrats" of times long dead and gone, the fathers of today's Republican Party of Jefferson Davis, to blacken the reputation of today's Liberal Democratic children of Abraham Lincoln.

McCain's links to groups, individuals and web sites that promote white supremacism are manifold:

Robert Stacy McCain writes for VDARE and Takimag, two disgusting, openly racist websites. And he’s a friend of Richard Spencer, a self-avowed white nationalist. McCain is a member of the white supremacist group League of the South, and he’s associated with the deeply racist American renaissance.

Check out any of these groups on the web, Stephen, and see if I’m exaggerating. You might want to start with Google’s cache of the American Renaissance website.

I don’t link directly to them because they’re a hate group.

There’s more information on Robert Stacy McCain here: Defending Dixie.

Here's Vincent's previous collaborator on interracial marriage:

"[T]he media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion. The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sister-in-law, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us."

Yes, you read that right: a "natural revulsion" and "THIS IS NOT RACISM."

Lynn Vincent herself probably feels comfortable with Sarah Palin's creationist views (partial exposure of which earned PA a 2008 award). She has written about the perils of belief in evolution, and has called intelligent design "science."

Vincent and Palin can feel camaraderie on another level too:

Palin has been filmed declaring the Iraq War to be a holy war. She has stated that she wants Alaska Natives relocated to strategic hubs hamlets. Her sole trip to Alaska's Yukon Delta during the winter of 2009 was with proselytizing Cristianist supremacists Jerry Prevo and Franklin Graham. Both have made efforts in the past to suppress, if not eradicate, Alaska Native culture.

Vincent co-authored a book with Christianist zealot, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, called Never Surrender. Here's some classic Boykin:

As many will remember, we couldn't have gotten off to a better start on winning hearts and minds when Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, on his speaking tour of churches in 2003, publicly and in uniform proclaimed that the so-called war on terror was really a fight between Satan and Christians.

He made comments like, "We in the Army of God, in the House of God, the Kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this," saying that George W. Bush, who had ignorantly called the war a crusade, was "in the White House because God put him there," and referring to the capture of Somali warlord Osman Atto, said, "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."

Speaking at a Rotary Club meeting in his hometown of Concord, N.C., in December 2006, one of Boykin's supporters, former Rep. Robin Hayes, R-N.C., pronounced that stability in Iraq ultimately depended on "spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men. ... Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the savior."

Palin's fit with Vincent may be a stroke of sick genius. Imagine Vincent tossing Palin's verbal herbage into a lethal concoction, designed to spread more hatred of non-whites, urging people to reject the products of interracial marriage, conjuring up the false spirits of the Old South, touting carrying loaded weapons into public meetings, urging citizens to strike out openly and assertively against census workers - and on and on and........

And a journalistic coup might be had in getting Robert Stacy McCain's views on the Crazy Woman.